When Tawanna Myers goes grocery shopping, it’s inevitable: She says she always gets talking to employees or fellow shoppers, and ends up learning their stories and sharing her own—creating informal mentorship opportunities.
“I recently found at least three phone numbers of young people I met who said something like, ‘I was having a bad day and didn’t know what to do but you inspired me,’ ” says Myers, chief people and culture officer at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, an organization whose mentorship mission she says “has inspired me to take that extra moment to say hello, to talk to someone and let them open up. I want to be that model of a mentor.”
While Big Brothers Big Sisters motivates her to spread mentorship throughout her community, the power of mentorship has been a refrain throughout her career, including through her more than 18 years at Boys & Girls Clubs of America, where she held positions in talent acquisition, talent management, HR operations, employee relations and more. Before leaving for Big Brothers Big Sisters last year, she served as Boys & Girls Clubs’ vice president of talent management and DE&I in its national office.
Myers recently spoke with HRE about the role mentoring—including reverse mentoring, which puts young people in the driver’s seat—is playing in shaping the organization’s people strategy.
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